Opinion: Record Labels Hoarding Booty From Pirate Bay Convictions

Thank goodness somebody is looking out for musicians' best interests. Back in February, a ruling from Sweden's Supreme Court ordered defendants from The Pirate Bay to pay out $675,000 to music labels for the purpose of recouping lost royalties. But instead—as reported by TorrentFreak—these labels are turning around and donating what money they do recover to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry to promote their anti-piracy campaigns. So the musicians who lost money when the defendants pirated their music are still losing money even though the pirate-ers have been convicted. Neat system!

But if you pull back a bit, this sort of-kind of starts to make sense. Because when listeners pirate music, they are more likely to go to concerts and compensate musicians for their work in other ways. Meanwhile, the middle man of record labels usually get cut out of this mix. Nobody figures out new ways to compensate the RIAA or the IFPI—maybe because putting confusing acronyms on T-shirts is soo 2011; or maybe because the things they do aren't interesting or impressive and nobody really gives a shit about their attempt to co-opt an underdog narrative. So the take-home lesson for all of you young Marxists is that this is what happens when "social justice" gets privatized.